


Say Katie

by thatdamneddame



Series: Say Katie [1]
Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's dating some girl named Katie except not really. Or, the Story of How Steve and Tony are Clueless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Katie

**Author's Note:**

> Not my usual fair, but it's sunny out and I have to write a thesis, so it's either this or go insane. Please, forgive me.

As the Avengers came to know each other, a few things became apparent. The Hulk hated PBS Documentaries and Bruce Banner had always loved _Antiques Roadshow_. It was actually impossible to teach Thor about inside voices. Natasha baked when she was angry. And Clint was banging some chick named Katie.

 

 

“You know,” Tony would say, as Clint made sure he had his keys and the small gift wrapped box he wouldn’t let anyone touch, “We should probably meet this girl of yours. You know, vet her, make sure she’s good for our boy.”

And Tony would try to pinch Clint’s cheek and Clint would easily duck and say, “You got a snowball’s chance of that happening, Stark,” and he would head out in his nice jeans and a button down only to return at a respectable hour with a takeout box full of cheddar bay biscuits.

 

 

Sometimes Bruce would say, “I once took Betty to Red Lobster. She thought I was breaking up with her,”

And Clint would roll his eyes and shove another biscuit into his mouth, completely ignoring the dietary plan that very concerned SHIELD nutritionists had designed, and Steve had put on the fridge, and Coulson had marked up in angry orange highlighter with a note,  _This means you, Barton_.

 

 

After a while it just became a thing. Coulson became extra taze-happy after the ex-wife called to bitch about missing another parent-teacher conference. You avoided the kitchen when Natasha made blini if you valued your life. Nick Fury threatened the Avengers with every punishment known on Earth and Asgard if they made another PR manager cry, and Clint would spend most nights sleeping off-base, Tony and Steve looking at each other and sighing, _Katie_. And really, it wasn’t a big deal at all.

 

 

There was a press conference. Fury decided the Avengers needed to be more public, more human.

“You do realize,” Tony said, never having a proper respect for life, “that there are only two Avengers who haven’t had any sort of modifications, right?”

And Thor sighed and said, “The last time I was at an announcement of such grandeur, my brother allowed a Jotun into Asgard.”

And Fury sort of looked like he wanted to stab himself in the eye and was feeling kind of bitter that he only had one available.

 

 

Wanting the Avengers to seem more human apparently meant that SHIELD had told them to ask the most intrusive personal questions they could, like they were some celebutante with a sex tape.

“No, I am not engaged in a polyamorous relationship with Captain America and Pepper Potts. You really think Cap would go for that?” Tony said for the umpteenth time.

“Yes, I have been in contact with Peggy’s family. They are wonderful people who have been nothing but kind,” Steve said, thankful for once it wasn’t a question about how close he and Bucky really were.

“No,” Clint said, grinning like the cocky bastard he is, “not single. Happily married.”

And really, it’s a good thing that the Avengers had been so highly trained, because they all were this close to flipping a shit.

 

 

They cornered Clint after the press conference and Thor hugged Clint and told him congratulations and Bruce shook his hand and Natasha didn’t care because she knew Clint before the Avengers were a spark in Nick Fury’s eye, and Steve and Tony both tried to bully Clint for more.

“I know that you’re Captain America and a Billionaire genius, but you’re both idiots,” Clint told them, refusing to budge.

“If you’re married to Katie, then we should probably meet her,” Steve told him, torn between earnestness and righteous indignation.

Clint laughed so hard that he couldn’t answer.

 

 

Thor and Bruce and Natasha were unconcerned. Tony and Steve felt that as a total busybody and leader of the Avengers, respectfully, that they should know who Katie was so together they started to, effectively, stalk Clint. The problem being, of course, that his medical proxy was information was only open to SHIELD doctors, no matter how much hacking Tony did, and Clint was pretty much a ninja, and stealth was not one the abilities the super-serum had enhanced. Besides, Clint seemed to spend his time down at the range, scaring Bruce for science, or annoying Coulson.

 

 

Tony and Steve switched tactics.

“Yes, I’ve met Katie. Yes, I knew Clint was married. Yes, I know that you’re my teammates, but I will hurt you,” was Natasha’s answer when they asked her.

Bruce wasn’t any better, “You two really are unobservant,” he said mildly, peering through a microscope, “Fascinating. Here, look at this.” And Tony and Steve made a break for it, because nothing good ever came out of helping Bruce in the lab.

 

 

Natasha came out of her room one day wearing a sundress, and Tony’s brain nearly melted. Clint appeared, wearing jeans and a button down, and said, “Ready, Romanov?” and when Steve asked where they were going, Clint just said, “Katie’s graduation.”

And Tony absolutely did not whine, “You invited Natasha but not me? I am heartbroken.”

Natasha just shrugged and said, “She invited me,” and she left with Clint before anyone could ask any more questions.

 

 

Clint sneaks a fourteen-year-old girl into the house one day, “If you tell your dad, he will actually kill me.” Steve overhears, and the girl just laughs and smiles and says in that tone all teenagers possess, “Please, like I would,” and Clint laughs, “That’s my girl.”

 

 

Steve and Tony pounce Clint as he tried to leave. The girl has brown hair and freckles and grey eyes and looks thoroughly unimpressed by Steve and Tony, which is sort of a refreshing change.

Cornered, Clint says, “Fuck it, this is Katie,” and Katie says, “If you see my dad, I wasn’t here.”

Steve looks a little green around the gills, but Tony manages a, “Please tell me that you are not diddling a teenager,” and then after thinking on it, “Who’s your dad, kid?”

Katie looks at Tony like he’s an idiot and says, “Phil Coulson.”

And Clint says, in the confused silence, “Seriously, do not tell him we were here. He’ll have my balls,” before hustling a giggling Katie out of the Avengers Mansion.

 

 

Steve decides that as the self-determined moral leader of the Avengers, he has the moral imperative to tell Coulson that Clint has been hanging out with his daughter and taking her on illicit field trips. Tony comes with, mostly because he finds sick delight in when Coulson tazes people who aren’t him.

Except when they burst into Coulson’s office, filled with the glee of tattling, they find Coulson and Katie and Clint all sitting on that beat up couch of Coulson's eating Chinese food out of the containers.

Coulson says, completely bland and thus completely terrifying, “Can I help you, Captain Rogers? Mr. Stark?”

Steve, who apparently is more bullheaded than Tony realized, says, “We just wanted to makes sure that you knew Clint brought your daughter to the Mansion on the weekend.”

And Clint says, “Traitor,” and Katie says, “Oh, Jesus,” and Coulson keeps on looking unimpressed and says, “It was a calculated risk when I married him.”

 

 

Nothing really changes after that, except for the month Clint spends trying to sneak Nair into Tony’s shampoo and attempting to glitter glue Steve’s shield (glitter glue, thankfully, washes off). Clint spends his nights not at the mansion and goes to Red Lobster for Katie’s birthday every year and spends his days shooting arrows and hanging out with Coulson. Natasha calls them all idiots and then some other stuff in Russian, and then makes baklava, which means that she’s angry at herself for being so fond. Bruce ignores them all and tries to see if the History Channel is any better than PBS (It’s not).

Really, at this point, Steve and Tony are more concerned with Thor’s recent foray into nudism.

So really, nothing’s changed at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "Say Katie" by The Sugarplastic. Not that the lyrics have anything to do with this fic, but it's a good song. You should probably listen to it.


End file.
